HOLLY, Colo. — Eric Jensen surveys his dusty cantaloupe field and seems equally stunned and puzzled at the fate that has befallen his crop: row upon row of melons rotting on the vine.

Jensen is the co-owner of the Colorado farm where health officials say a national listeria outbreak originated, making his withering fields the epicenter of a food scare that has sickened dozens of people from Wyoming to Maryland and caused as many as 17 deaths.

The farm has recalled more than 300,000 cases of cantaloupes and on Thursday three states — Indiana, Louisiana and Wisconsin — were added to the recall list. Spokeswoman Amy Philpott said that trucking records show that cantaloupes originally intended for other locations ended up in those states but that the buyers were notified as part of the original Sept. 14 recall.

Jensen has no idea how his cantaloupes became infected, and neither do the Food and Drug Administration investigators who have intermittently been in this town of 800 people near the Kansas border since the outbreak started earlier this month.

Regardless of how it happened, the situation has left the town and farm reeling and in fear. Jensen had to quit growing and shipping cantaloupes after the outbreak was discovered — a staggering blow to a region where cantaloupe has always been a proud local tradition.

Until the listeria infections started showing up, Holly’s field workers would bring melons into town to share, just as they have for generations. And it wasn’t uncommon for Holly residents to stop by Jensen Farms to buy freshly picked cantaloupe.

lettuce recall
A California farm recalled almost 2,500 cartons of bagged romaine lettuce after a sample tested positive for listeria, a potentially deadly bacterium.
No illnesses have been linked to the recalled lettuce, producer True Leaf Farms, owned by closely held Church Brothers LLC in Salinas, said in a statement posted Friday on the Food and Drug Administration’s website. The product was shipped Sept. 12 and Sept. 13 to food distributors in 21 states and its “use by” date is Sept. 29, Church Brothers said Thursday in a separate statement.
— Bloomberg News